La Chambre de Mariana

Emmanuel Finkiel’s potent Ukrainian-set Second World War drama tells the story of an 11-year-old Jewish boy who, entrusted by his mother to the care of a sex worker, gradually opens his eyes to both the cruelty and the generosity of the world.

In the darkest days of the Second World War, Yulia and Hugo, a Jewish mother and son, escape from a Ukrainian ghetto. Fearing for his safety, Yulia entrusts her boy to the care of her friend Mariana, a sex worker who lives in a brothel. Hugo is placed in a closet, nominally for his safety, but from which he rarely leaves. With little view of the outside world, he conjures up ghosts and scenarios. But over time, Mariana brings the boy out and in doing so transforms his life.

An adaptation of Aharon Appelfeld’s acclaimed novel Blooms of Darkness, which was partly inspired by the writer’s own experiences during the conflict, La chambre de Mariana is a frank portrait of conflict seen from a child’s perspective, as Hugo attempts to understand why some are capable of unbridled cruelty while others risk everything in acts of pure selflessness. Emmanuel Finkiel’s understated drama profits from his intense focus on Hugo’s increasingly intimate relationship with Mariana, one that is conveyed with sensitivity by newcomer Artem Kyryk and Mélanie Thierry, in one of her most complex and accomplished performances.

– Ian Haydn Smith

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